The cotton industry being of secondary importance prior to 1790,
information and statistics relative to the amount produced are not
available, but within one hundred years, from 1790 to 1890, the
production of cotton in the United States increased from five thousand
bales to over ten million bales.
The first cotton-mill erected in the United States was built at Beverly,
Massachusetts, in 1787-1788. This was soon followed by others in various
towns along the east border of the country, especially Pawtucket and
Providence, Rhode Island; Boston, Massachusetts; New Haven and Norwich,
Connecticut; New York City; Paterson, New Jersey; Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania; and Statesburg, South Carolina. In them carding and
spinning were done by machinery, but the weaving was on hand-looms
until 1815, at which date a power-loom mill was started at Waltham,
Massachusetts. The use of hand-looms and spinning-wheels for cotton
manufacture was common in all parts of the country before the
Revolution, especially in the Southern colonies, and these continued to
be used by the women in their houses many years after the erection of
cotton factories.
DENISON OLMSTED
Mr. Whitney had scarcely set his foot in Georgia when he was met by a
disappointment which was an earnest of that long series of adverse
events which, with scarcely an exception, attended all his future
negotiations in the same State. On his arrival he was informed that Mr.
B. had employed another teacher, leaving Whitney entirely without
resources or friends, except those whom he had made in the family of
General Greene. In these benevolent people, however, his case excited
much interest, and Mrs. Greene kindly said to him: "My young friend, you
propose studying the law; make my house your home, your room your
castle, and there pursue what studies you please." He accordingly began
the study of law under that hospitable roof.
Mrs. Greene was engaged in a piece of embroidery in which she employed a
peculiar kind of frame called a tambour. She complained that it was
badly constructed, and that it tore the delicate threads of her work.
Mr. Whitney, eager for an opportunity to oblige his hostess, set himself
at work and speedily produced a tambour-frame made on a plan entirely
new, which he presented to her. Mrs. Greene and her family were greatly
delighted with it, and thought it a wonderful proof of ingenuity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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